Could dengue fever come to this country?
Ireland will most likely have problems with mosquito-borne diseases in the future, a UCC expert has said.
Though it may be decades away, Prof. Gerard Killeen of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, says he was shocked to learn of recent cases of dengue fever in the south of France.
Prof. Killeen, who has spent over 18 years in east Africa working on the behavioural ecology of mosquitoes, told the Cork Independent that it would take “a lot of climate change” for an exotic species to develop a population as far north as Ireland.
“Now, having said that, we've all been quite surprised in recent years by how fast things are moving,” said Prof. Killeen.
He added: “The fact that there are cases of dengue in France is shocking to me. That's not so far away, that's where people go on their holidays.
“I think we will have problems in Ireland with mosquito-borne diseases and other vector-borne diseases, but I'll be about retiring, I hope, by the time that happens.
“But I'm very keen that there's somebody in Ireland that knows one end of a mosquito from another and knows what to do about it in a worst case scenario.”
Prof. Killeen’s comments follow reports coming from the UK where doctors are concerned that climate change coupled with the “rapidly changing” nature of the dengue virus could see outbreaks as far north as Britain and Ireland.
Dengue, or break bone fever, is typically most common in Asia, South America and Africa, and can cause rash, nausea, high fever, severe headache, swollen glands, and in some cases, excruciating joint pain. It is mostly carried by the aedes albopictus and aedes aegypti species of mosquito, which do not thrive in colder climates.
However, Prof. Killeen says if Ireland were to be struck with a mosquito-borne disease, it would most likely be brought here by birds and then transmitted to humans by local species of mosquito, of which Ireland has 12.
He said: “Dengue is really not a lot of fun, it's a very serious virus. It's known as break bone fever and people who have had it say malaria is pretty tame by comparison. I've had malaria and it certainly wasn't fun.
“The first thing to reach us will most probably be an arbovirus from birds, transmitted by our local mosquitos.
“A lot of people would be unaware that the last serious malaria outbreak in the UK was only in 1946, it's not that long ago. If you go back far enough in history, there was malaria as far north as Finland.
“I couldn't believe how easy it was to find malaria vector mosquitos on the coast of Cork, and our last (malaria) outbreak in Ireland was in Cork in the 1800s.
“There are records of aedes aegypti being caught in Cork. One of the reason's it's such a problematic mosquito is that the eggs are incredibly robust. You could post eggs to your friends if you wanted. They're quite good at moving around on boats and the question is not whether they can reach us, but if they can survive our climate?”